Our forefathers knew the feeling. One minute there you are, like Brazils football team on Tuesday, settling down to start a long campaign. The next minute, bewilderingly, it is all over: Germany is master of the field, counting prisoners or  in this case  an unprecedented 7-1 triumph in the World Cup semi-final, executed with chilling discipline and precision. What is it about the Germans? Yes, yes, I know we are not meant to mention the war, or rather wars. But how can we not do so, when for centuries the world paid tribute to Germanys prowess on the battlefield? The Roman writer Tacitus and the French revolutionary Mirabeau alike marvelled at the Germans as a society of supremely disciplined warriors.

You have to marvel at Angela Merkel achieving by Euros what Kaiser Willie and Hitler failed to do with guns; supremacy on the Continent. Unfortunately since it appears the UK is stuck in the EU they are going to be eventually dominated to.

The Germans have always had the drive, discipline, and smarts to be the best. I can only think of the U.S. as the only other nation that matches (or used to) their national attitude. Many of our best businessmen in the late 19th century were German immigrants (legal).

If they just didn’t blow it on stupid militarism over the past 100 years, you might have seen a German on the moon in 1959.

Germans work hard, they insist on excellence and they bring passion to everything they do.

In technology, science and culture, they are the leading nation in Europe and the world and since the 19th Century, Germany has been the economic powerhouse of Europe. Outside of Russia, its the most populous country in Europe.

I too admire the Germans, and worked for various German companies for 27 years. I did finally get to be fluent in German..or so my friends told me.

Like many nationalities there are good at some things but not in others. Flexabilty is not a strong point, but systematic rigor is. I attribute this to their language, which is complicated but has few exceptions. They think this way from infancy.

So they excel at road building and engineering. They love quality above quantity.

In WWII the Tiger tank was much better that the Sherman but we built dozens more per Tiger. In wars quantity is better.

In terms of business though you’ll find few German companies expanding in the Fatherland. They go to other parts of the world if they can. BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes in Alabama are two examples. Maybe that’s economic imperialism of a kind, but we all benefit.

If we could just get them to come over and fix our lousy roads here in the northeast I would be happy.

it is only a matter of time when Germany, which is already the dominate power in EU, turns it into the EG - the European states of Germany. They are brilliant in the steady turning of that massive mass of BS into what I believe is their goal. I have only received shrugged shoulders when I have said this for the past 10 years.

15
posted on 07/10/2014 7:17:04 AM PDT
by elpadre
(AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)

In WWII the Tiger tank was much better that the Sherman but we built dozens more per Tiger. In wars quantity is better.

I think it was Stalin who said "Quantity has a quality all its own."

Reading one of Stephen Ambrose's books on WWII, when veterans were asked which Europeans they admired the most, he was surprised that most of them said the Germans.

One veteran said that they would fight their way through a town and by time they reached the other side, the Germans were out in the street cleaning up, while in other countries the people were either complaining about the damage or were stealing anything they could from the Americans.

Yes, having lived there a very large portion of my life, I was amazed at their genius for taking other countries’ inventions and turning them into A+ products. They are still an industrialized nation and take a lot of pride in the products they turn out. You can buy cheap products from other countries there, but if you want quality, you buy German.

We purchased a 2 year old BMW which was still under warranty for 3 more ears. We kept it dealer-maintained because of the service we received. It was always done right the first time. When we got the car back from whatever...even an oil change, it was detailed fully! What a deal! We felt like they treated us like friends when we came in. The customer service people were very professional. I miss that. I really do!

I’m considering a move from where I thought I would retire to another county that has a large German Mennonite influence. In just one county you go from front porch storage / junk yard to clean, neat and well tended farms. It is truly amazing how one group of people can motivate others by example.

As mentioned by others, the Germans are craftsmen, persnickety engineers and persnickety in just about everything else and I quite admire that but they also seem to have a moral bankruptcy and a blind adherence to following without discretion. In spite of being good engineers they can tend to not be very intellectually honest and will not easily concede to being wrong. In fact, they will often not even consider the possibility of being wrong and will persist in doing wrong things even after they know how wrong they are!

I watched the video and learned a lot about myself and my family. I am of German descent on my father’s side. I am very efficient in the way I work, I plan my work and work my plan and when I work for someone I work as if I own the place. In the past I have worked in a family business and have owned a couple of small ones.

On my mother’s side I am what is called ‘the old mountain people’, we were here before Daniel Boone found the trail. Her side is more into hunting, fishing, and general hell raising. Moonshining, running gambling halls, a little illegal stuff runs in the family. No drug dealing, at least that I know of.

Imagine the constant battle in my head, 1/2 of me is a risk taker and hellraiser and loner, the other is a methodical, community minded, team player. It aint easy being me. But it is entertaining since I never know from day to day which side will exert control.

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